Spotify Free Users in India Can Finally Search and Play Any Track, Design Playlist Covers, and More

Spotify on Monday announced a new experience for free users of the music streaming app. As per the company, some of the restrictions have been removed, and listeners will now have more control over how they listen to music. To begin with, the new Search and Play option, as the name suggests, enables users to search for tracks and play them in any order. They can also design custom covers for playlists with unique images, colours, text effects, and more.

Spotify's New Experience for Free Users

In a blog post, Spotify said it is rolling out three new features to help users discover and enjoy music and podcasts on the app — Pick and Play, Search and Play, and Share and Play.

The first one lets you play any song that appears on your Spotify app's home page, without having to skip through a randomly shuffled playlist. With the second option, you can search for any track and play it, without any restrictions. With the third option, you can listen to tracks shared by your friends or an artist on social media.

All of the new features have been introduced for Spotify users as part of the free tier. However, there is a caveat. Similar to the previously available free listening mode, listeners have a daily quota of free listening time. Once this ends, the app will go back to the traditional shuffle-only mode.

In a statement to The Verge, Spotify spokesperson Luke Mackay said, “Only Spotify Premium users have complete control to play and skip music without restrictions”.

Free users will reportedly have up to six skips per hour, and they will need to upgrade to Spotify Premium to continue to have the same experience without any restrictions.

Apart from this, the Swedish music streaming platform is also rolling out the ability to create custom playlist covers. It is introduced in 128 markets around the world, enabling listeners to personalise their playlist covers with unique images, colours, text effects, and graphic elements.

However, only one custom cover art can be saved per playlist at any given time. Each newly created cover will override the previous one, as per Spotify.